“You DO NOT stop.”
I stumbled away from the door, trying to shake the confusion from my head.
“I don’t care what you see.”
“You absolutely do not stop until you get to Papa, Gramps or Vera.”
“Do you understand?”
“Do you understand?”
“Do you understand?”
“Run, baby. GO!”
I spun on my heel and ran for the back door without understanding why I was doing it. I needed him.
Papa.
I needed Papa.
I hit the back door at a run.
I saw him as soon as I hit the porch.
Oh, God. There he was.
“Papa!” I screamed, diving for him.
Chapter 13
Cameron
It all happened so fast that later, I would wonder if the sequence of events I remembered got somehow jumbled in my memory. I wished I could forget it.
Casper announced that he’d knocked Farrah up again, a smug smile on his face, and I couldn’t keep our news in any longer. My eyes met Dragon’s as I told them Trix was pregnant, too, then watched as he stomped toward me. My parents were a couple feet away, sitting in a rocking chair, and Brenna was chasing after her man to calm him down when the sliding glass door behind me slammed open.
I didn’t even have time to turn.
Trix’s shoulder hit me hard as she rushed past and I didn’t have a chance to grab her before she was flying off the porch, hitting Dragon’s chest as she screamed for him.
Her voice was so goddamn high-pitched that it was almost a screech, and thank God he braced himself, because she hit him hard, wrapping her body around his torso.
The backyard went completely silent aside from the radio playing softly in the kitchen window.
Then everything seemed to happen at once.
Slider pushed Lily onto Gram’s lap as he and Poet rose from the table, while Dragon’s eyes widened at whatever Trix was murmuring over and over again against his neck.
Will glanced at his brothers, who’d been jostling each other near the horseshoe pit, and Leo pushed past where Cecilia was standing near the base of the oak tree in the backyard, his face full of confusion.
And then—
Fuck.
Men came around the sides of the house. There were only three of them. Christ. Only three.
But it felt like so much more.
We weren’t prepared.
We were fucking sitting ducks.
The first shot wasn’t loud. Maybe that’s why it took us a second to realize what was happening. Maybe not.
It didn’t really matter.
They were indiscriminate.
I pulled my piece as Slider and Poet flipped the picnic table on its side, shielding Lily, Gram and Vera behind the wide, wood planks. Dragon shoved Trix at me as I fired at the man on my right, missing him as Trix’s shaking body hit me. I threw her down behind me, against the wall of the house, as my ma dropped to the floor, crawling up beside her. Casper fired at the man on the right and took him down, but we couldn’t get a clear sight on the fuckers on the left because of the angle of the house.
Mick went down first. Christ. He’d pushed Tommy behind him as they tried to find some cover, but they hadn’t been goddamn fast enough. I wasn’t sure if Tommy was hit, but he was beneath his younger brother, screaming and crying as Mick’s huge, limp body refused to move.
Grease scooped Rose up and practically threw her to Cecilia behind the tree, and I could just barely make out my sister’s feet as they tried to hide. That fucking tree wasn’t big enough.
Will was shooting back, and I watched as his body jerked, but he didn’t go down.
Poet and Slider were firing back from their perch in front of the table, but they barely got a shot off before Slider went down. The picnic table was shredded as one of the men swung his weapon in a long arc.
I ran toward the edge of the porch as Grease roared, and I caught sight of Callie falling to her knees in the yard.
One of the men went down, his weapon spraying indiscriminately through the carnage.
“Leo!” Trix screamed as my ma wrapped her arms and legs around Trix’s body, forcing her back against the porch behind me.
Then the last man fell.
And all around me, all I could hear was screaming.
“You alright?” I asked Trix as I ran to her. She nodded vaguely, staring out into the yard.
“Okay, Ladybug?” Casper demanded. “Call nine-one-one.”
We jumped off the side of the porch and paused.
I didn’t know who to go to first.
Cecilia stumbled around the tree, her face so white it was nearly blue, carrying Rose, whose feet nearly reached the ground. Her hand was grasping the back of Rose’s head to hide her face, but both looked unhurt. She stumbled forward and then stopped, as if she didn’t know where to go.
“Lily,” Casper murmured, running toward the mangled picnic table.
“Sheets, Ma!” I yelled at her as I raced toward Callie. She was on her back in the middle of the yard, Will trying to stem the blood pouring from her chest with his t-shirt.